Chapter 5

Discovery

"The weather people say we've got a week's window, maybe even a week and a half of calm weather over the island. I've contracted with a New Zealand mineral exploration company. They've got a long range P3 Orion survey airplane fitted with magnetic and radar mapping gear. I 'sweetened' the deal to encourage them to make the flight, but they'll abort if the weather turns sour."

"Good. What's the time frame."

"They'll be over the site day after tomorrow. They'll have only two hours or so to fly a low-level grid, but that should be plenty of time. They've agreed to do it despite the darkness, using their radar altimeter. But, again, that's assuming the weather remains favorable and they don't experience turbulent conditions at the site. They've agreed to do a slow-flight, GPS tracking grid pattern one hundred feet off the deck to give us maximum detection returns.

"The equipment operators have been instructed to auto-log the results but not to analyze them. Their recorders will be locked. All the data will be recorded with encryption and forwarded to our lab for analysis. We're expecting to see the first results no later than three days, four days max, from now."

The director nodded his approval. Jameson returned to his office, humming softly to himself. His mind was already way out in front of the aerial survey findings. He was planning a ground party to start drilling for samples. If only the damnable Antarctic winter didn't keep getting in the way. Another five or six months and he'd have his first samples. He knew there was something down there, and he wanted a piece of it!

The thundering sound of the four-engined airplane as it roared overhead, barely above his tent, startled Michael so badly that he spilled the small pot of water he was setting to one side after adding instant soup mix.

"Holy crap!" he yelled. He ignored the scalding hot soup running down his snow pants and spreading out on the tent floor.

"An airplane! Hot diggity-damn, I'll be go to hell, if it ain't a damned airplane here right over my head ... that damn fool, he's so damn low!"

He jerked down the zipper and burst out through the opening to see the strobe lights and exhaust flare of the big P3 Orion aircraft flying a straight line towards the volcano, it's long magnetic-anomaly detection boom extended behind it. The plane climbed in a sharp arc, swung around and descended to make another straight line pass, its wing-mounted landing lights casting a brilliant glare onto the ice surface. It ran a track parallel to the first and was coming right back at him. Michael hopped in a shuffling, leg swinging gait toward his "X" rescue panel, dipping a hastily ignited flare into each oily rag-filled can until all were lit. He waved his arm frantically overhead, the sputtering and flaming red flare held outstretched as he lurched along. His leg, healing and no longer draining or threatening, was still not able to stand his full weight. He swung it out to the side to balance himself while he awkwardly hopped forward on his good leg.

"See me, you bastards! Look down, here, I'm right here," he screamed as the big airplane thundered overhead and streaked toward the other end of the island, not diverting from its track.

"He's surveying the damned site!" Michael yelled to himself. "The bastards are doing a site survey! They're looking for them, their ship, they've been sent to do what I was going to do with the ground sensors. They're recording and plotting the returns from under the ice!"

Oh, damn! he thought. Talk about conflicted! I'm going to be seen, rescued, but they'll be seen! Dee'rah, her people, their ship will be outlined and analyzed and the damned agency will be crawling all over this place as soon as they can get ground parties here!

The airplane lifted in a turning arc and returned on another parallel track. This time the pilot waggled his wings to acknowledge seeing Michael standing, still waving his arms frantically from the center of his rescue signal panels. As the plane hurtled past he could see the dark form of the pilot through the cockpit's side window, silhouetted against the dim red cabin lights. The pilot raised his hand, waved, and he was holding up a microphone. It took only that briefest glimpse before the airplane shot past.

Mike kneeled in the tent opening, his handheld VHF aircraft radio turned to the emergency channel. The pilot's voice came through: "Hey, mate, that's a helluva cold and dark place to be campin' yer self, wouldn't you say?"

Mike gave them his details, a condition report, and his supply estimate. The big four-engine turboprop aircraft thundered back and forth overhead, running a tight grid that covered the entire island from the volcano base to the opposite end. Finally, it lifted and flew away, calling down to Mike to confirm that they carried his sighting with them and to relax. Help would quickly be on its way.

The darkness was intensifying; there was no longer a faint twilight glow in the northern sky. Michael lit his small gas-bottle lantern in the tent. He cleaned up the half-frozen mess from the spilled soup, and then put another pot of snow on the stove to make up the meal that he'd missed. The long antarctic night settled in around him as he leaned back against the crates stacked inside. He stretched his legs out on the warm padding of the sleeping bags.

Jumped-up Christ on a pogo stick! he swore to himself. I was certain I'd die in this miserable place, and now that I'm found all I can do is worry about ... her ... and them!

Michael-mine, you fear they will come?

Oh yes, they will come! It is certain they will come. When the work season opens up, they will bring drilling equipment and maybe even digging equipment. They will not rest until they probe your ship, and then they will dig down to it and try to enter. It is a certainty. But it will not be soon. They cannot get here for... (he thought of the winter season, storms, impossible access and working conditions) ... until late spring or summer... (thinking of the warmer weather and longer days.)

Yes, we know the seasons and weather. We understand. Please understand our ship is a different material, is not easy to 'sense' with earth technology. We will appear 'indistinct' you would say, not clear.

No matter, Dee'rah, they will see enough to want to see more. It will challenge them to come drill and dig. It is a mystery that arouses their suspicions, fears. They are professional paranoiacs, their living is to suspect, distrust, and reveal. No, Dee'rah-mine, they will come!

Michael ran a checklist of possibilities and precautions through his mind. Was there anything here on site, or in himself, that would reveal more information about his discovery? Yes, dammit! His journal!

Since childhood days in eastern Washington where he grew up in a remote mountain valley, he practiced an idiosyncratic habit. His best friend, Rhys Jacobs and himself stumbled upon an ancient code for writing messages. They started with the simple Julius Caesar 'substitution cipher' code to pass messages. That was too simple, so as they grew older and more skilled they learned more sophisticated methods. They made working models of Jefferson's wheel cipher and used that until the personal computer age, when Rhys wrote a software program using the wheel cipher model. He and Michael never lost the habit of recording their personal journals and messages between themselves in code.